I'll be there
by planet p
Summary: AU - **Mixed Gender Classes School** - Evie's having a bad day at school, until Seb comes along. Evie/Seb


**I'll be there** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _The Red Cardigan_ or _Nine Letters Long_ or any of their characters.

* * *

Evie takes the corner at a run; she'd been feeling off and she's just asked to be excused from class. The door of the classroom behind her gets smaller and smaller, but she doesn't notice. Her legs are shaking; she's scared she's going to be sick before she makes it to the girls' toilets.

Around the corner, she barges straight into someone. She lets out a shriek, but her hand has already gone up to cut it off.

She's backed into the wall, and the other person is sprawled on the corridor floor: folders, exercise books, text books, pencil case and calculator littering the floor.

Her heart stops, then goes on pumping, _so_ fast.

Her hand leaves her mouth, she feels her teeth chomp down on her bottom lip; she does a mental wince.

It's Seb!

Oh, crap, it's Seb!

She throws out her hands, as if in surrender. "I'm sorry," she half yells; her stomach turns over, in rebellion. She feels her body telling her to move her legs. _Move now!_

"I'm sorry," she repeats; in a whine, this time. She's so _sorry_!

She cares for Seb; she… loves Seb, she sometimes thinks. And now she's running away on him after knocking him to the floor!

_I'm sorry!_ she cries, in her mind.

She runs. She _has to_ run.

She's going to throw up!

* * *

In the girls' toilet, she bends over sink and pukes up everything she had for breakfast. She feels _so_ bad, and leaving Seb like that only makes her feel worse.

_I'm going to explain it_, she promises. _It'll be okay; he'll understand once I've explained it. He won't hate me._

The wave of nausea hits her again; it's like she's the beach, and it's the seawater. She throws up again.

* * *

Poppy and Alex peer at her at lunch; Poppy's sitting by her side, an arm linked with hers; Alex is across the table.

"What's wrong?" Poppy asks.

"Nothing," she replies. "I'm fine." Which is surprisingly true – _now_. She _is_ fine – _now_.

Except, maybe, for the anger.

She needs to explain it to Seb, but she can't do it in front of Poppy and Alex.

If they get wind of her sudden onset of illness, they'll worry, like they're worrying now – but ten times _worse_!

"I think I need to go outside," she says. "Just… I think I want to catch some rays, a bit, you know?"

Poppy has on a funny look which means, _No, I _don't_ know!_

Alex nods. "Sure, we all get that at some point."

"And I wanted…" she hesitates, "some space…"

"We'll be right here," Alex replies.

Poppy stares at her.

Evie stands up, leaving her lunch at the table with her friends to mind over it, and walks away from the table. As she goes, she hears Poppy ask, "We will?"

"We _do_, Pop!" Alex's voice returns.

"Do what?"

"Stay right here."

"Oh."

"Doh, '_oh_'!"

Evie's shuffling her feet; she picks them up, when she hears and realises that it's her who's making that annoying, scuffing sound. As she passes the table where Seb sits, her feet start to drag again; she lets them, hoping it will annoy him as well and he will look up and see her.

He looks up. He says something quickly to the others he's sitting with, then he's coming over to her.

She feels suddenly hot.

Seb is coming _over_ – to _her_!

To _meet_ her!

In the middle of the _canteen_, where anyone can _see_ if they feel like it!

"I-I'm sorry," she stutters. "For earlier; for knocking you down. And running away. I needed to- to go to the… bathroom."

"The bathroom?" he asks, blankly. He doesn't comprehend; maybe he's thinking she needed to go to the loo really badly, or something.

She feels the heat in her face go up, up, _up_! Is she blushing? Oh, shit, she hopes not!

"I… think I have a stomach bug," she lies. When she'd decided to explain, she hadn't meant to lie; she hadn't thought she'd need to… but… she can't tell him about… _that_.

"Have you been to see the school nurse about it?" he asks.

_He's always so sensible_, she thinks. It's a quality she likes, rather than hates. She doesn't find it 'boring,' or 'predictable;' she thinks it's mature, grown up.

She shakes her head quickly. "No; I'm feeling better now, actually."

He frowns; he's unconvinced. "Well, maybe you should go down to the sickbay, anyway."

She starts to shake her head again, but he puts out a hand and _touches_ her arm. Even through her school jumper, she _feels_ it! His _hand_ on her _arm_.

It's magical.

She almost hears _violins_.

_Which is stupid!_ her mind protests. _Violins! Never mind the obvious question: Do we even like violins?_

Seb's voice startles her from her thoughts. "Look, why don't I take you there now?" he offers.

Evie feels her _eyes_ blush! "I-" she says, though she has no clue _why_!

"Not at all, Evie," he interrupts, "you won't be inconveniencing me; I'd be worried were you to carry on without at least, I don't know, having your temperature checked, or something. You're not inconveniencing me at all."

_You'd worry about me?_ she wants to ask, but she can't ask _that_! Not in front of the whole _school_, or, at least, the _whole_ canteen!

He steps away from her, and begins to walk toward the canteen door, leading back into the corridor.

She mirrors him lamely.

"If you have come down with something," he's saying, "you might want to take a few days off; I mean, you wouldn't want to infect everyone else, would you?" He pauses for thought, but plunges on before she can say anything. "I know you, Evie; I know that's not you."

She only nods.

After a while, they stop in front of the school nurse's office. _Here goes, I suppose_, she thinks. She steps forward and knocks on the door.

* * *

When she comes out, Seb is still there. He'd been waiting for her: _How sweet!_ she thinks.

She tells him the news: she's perfectly fine. There's nothing wrong with her, at all, from what the school nurse can tell. Her temperature's fine, her pulse is fine; everything – fine.

He asks if she's going to tell her parents, if she'll have them take her to see her doctor?

She shrugs: she hasn't decided yet.

"I think it'd be a smart idea," he says.

She smiles.

_It would be_, she thinks, _if I was someone else, someone… more normal. Someone not Evie, someone not… psychic._

'I'll run it by my parents," she lies.

His expression tells her that he's satisfied; he believes her.

She feels kinda trashy for lying, then.

* * *

She drops her schoolbag in the hallway, when she gets home from school, and walks to the back of the house, into the backyard. She'd just spent the weekend planting flowers, and she wants to check out if anything has happened yet.

Maybe she's a bit impatient, but she's got to make sure she pulls out the weeds before they get too big and start sucking away all of the water and good stuff in the soil that's meant for her plants, right?

When she comes back in, feeling like she could have done with a hat on her head, she goes to pick up her schoolbag from where she'd dumped it inside the front door.

Weirdly, her mum is standing near the front door, but she's not going out it, she's just standing there, looking at her.

Evie feels something twist in her gut.

"Evangeline," her mum says, "I have some news for you."

_What?_ she thinks. _Pick up my stinking schoolbag and quit expecting other people to do it _for_ me?_

_Shut up!_ she thinks. _Why do you have to be such a cow about it? Maybe she just wants to _tell_ you something, like she _said_ she did!_

She shrugs. "Sure, whatever. Fling it to me."

Her mum's face creases in a frown. She's not happy with her daughter's language.

Evie wants to shout at her, _It's my body! It's my business how I use it! It has shit all to do with you, _mum!_ I'll talk how I _want_ to talk, and you'll stay out of it – like you've stayed out of pretty much everything to do with that minute, trivial thing called my _life_!_

Her mum's eyes were brick and cement, giving nothing away. She said, "I'm pregnant."

Evie felt herself choke. _You're fucking what?_ she was afraid she might have screamed, but, _no_, she was gagging instead.

Then, the sound reached her mum's ears. Her eyes stayed the same.

Evie turned on her heel – _Damn the schoolbag!_ she thought hotly – and she _ran_.

Away from her mum. Away from her mum's lies and _If your clearance isn't high enough, then you're not privy, period._ Away from the future. Away from the _baby_!

_Yeah, mum_, she thought, as she fled, pumping her legs _faster_, screaming the words in her mind, _because you've been such a great mother to me! What, do you think just because you've been given a second chance it means, suddenly, that I don't _count_, that your first fuck up doesn't _count_?_

_Bitch!_

She threw her bedroom door open, then slammed it behind her with deafening force.

No matter what her mum thought, she would _always_ count! And if her mum even _once_ thought about neglecting this baby, then _she'd_ be there!

She wished she could call Seb; she wished she had his mobile number.

She'd just have to ask him for it tomorrow at school, she decided.

She _needed_ Seb: to keep her _sensible_.

Stop-rewind-30-seconds had just proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt, she thought.

She needed Seb!

_How I wish I could talk to you right now, Seb_, she thought.

* * *

**Well, it's not the best, but I just wanted to write something for this category to encourage any others out there who might have been thinking about doing the same. Thanks for reading.**

**P.S.: Wait! Does Evie go to an all-girls school. If she does – I don't remember – just take this to be AU, 'kay!**


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